What She Left Behind (5 page)

“You’re not friends with her?”

Alex looked away for a fraction of a second, and just that small movement, that tiny delay when Alex averted her eyes, made Izzy wonder if she was telling the truth. Maybe Alex was a spy for the mean girls, sent to make friends so she could report back.

“We used to be really close,” Alex said. “But that changed a while ago.”

“What happened?” Izzy knew her question sounded nosy, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t going to let herself fall into a trap.

“Why don’t we get together later?” Alex said. “I can give you a ride home if you want. I’ve got a ’76 Beamer. It’s junk heap, but I bought it myself and it serves the purpose.”

Izzy dug her nails into the cover of her math book, uncertainty fluttering in her stomach. “I’m supposed to take the bus home,” she said. “My foster parents told me not to ride with anyone they don’t know.”

“Well, how about if I stop by later then?” Alex said. “I’ll introduce myself to your foster parents and maybe we can hang out.”

Izzy was just about to agree when Alex glanced down the hall, past Izzy. Alex’s face dropped. Then Shannon and her friends were standing beside them, followed by a strong cloud of hairspray and perfume. Shannon beamed at Alex, her eyes twinkling, barely able to contain her exciting news.

“You’re still coming tonight, right?” she said. “Dave’s parents left for Florida and his fridge is stocked with beer!”

Alex frowned, her forehead knitted. She started to answer, but then Shannon looked at Izzy, as if noticing her for the first time.

“Oh,” Shannon said. She glanced back at the other girls, then smiled at Izzy. “You can come too, if you want. I’ll introduce you to everyone!”

“I . . .” Izzy started.

“Don’t forget,” Shannon said to Alex. “You promised to bring some tequila!”

Before Alex could react, Shannon hurried down the hall, laughing with the other girls. Izzy looked at Alex, waiting for an explanation.

“She knows I’m telling you I can’t stand her,” Alex said. “She did that to make me look like a liar.”

“If you say so,” Izzy said. “I’ve got to get to class.” She brushed past Alex and started down the hall, thinking it was going to be a long year. “See you around.”

CHAPTER 4

C
LARA

 

Two and a half months after the fight with her parents, Clara stood at the narrow, six-paned window of her third-floor room in Norton Cottage, looking out over the main grounds of the Long Island Home for Nervous Invalids. It was early morning on New Year’s Day, gray clouds hanging low and ominous in the winter sky. It had been storming all night, a near blizzard, and everything was cloaked in white. The trees in the cedar grove drooped under the weight of wet snow, and the rushing water in the nearby creek was the color of tombstones. The groundskeeper was shoveling the sidewalks, his back hunched, his red hat bobbing up and down as he heaved the wet snow into higher and higher banks. A low, black truck plowed the wide driveway, its blades raising and lowering like the wings of a giant wasp, the rumble of the engine and the scrape of the plow vibrating through the thin window glass. The wind had finally stopped, but every few minutes the sky opened up again, releasing a slow flurry of thick flakes.

Blinking back tears, Clara wondered where she would be next year on New Year’s Day. She pictured herself living with Bruno, raising their child together, finally out from beneath her parents’ rule. But first, she had to get out of the Long Island Home. She had to convince Dr. Thorn that she was being needlessly confined. So far, nothing had worked. He was taking her father’s word over hers.

If nothing else, she was relieved that the morning walk had been canceled. Not only was she glad that she didn’t have to go out in the snow and cold, but she had spent the morning in the bathroom throwing up, her first bout of morning sickness leaving her weak and shaky. She slid her hand down to her abdomen, already feeling protective of the baby growing inside her. Luckily, no one was able to tell she was pregnant just by looking at her, but she could feel the slight, firm swell below her navel. The baby was a girl, she was certain of it. Every night for over a week, she’d dreamed about a toddler in a pink lace dress, Bruno’s dark curls and chocolate-colored eyes looking up at her. Now, Clara swallowed the growing lump in her throat, surprised by the overwhelming love she already felt for her unborn child.

It made her think of her mother, Ruth. While pregnant with her firstborn, had Ruth put a protective hand over her growing belly, vowing to love and protect her baby for the rest of her life no matter what? Or was her burgeoning girth a burden to her fashion sense? Did she long for the day when she could finally hold her newborn in her arms and kiss his tiny, sweet-smelling forehead, or did she want to get her pregnancy over with so she could hand the baby over to a nanny and get on with her life? Clara had to believe it must have been the latter. Otherwise, how could a loving, nurturing mother turn into a selfish woman who didn’t give a damn about what happened to her children?

Clara pushed the image of her mother from her mind, knowing that trying to figure out the woman who brought her into this world wouldn’t change anything. She turned and sat on the narrow bed, wrapping her sweater around herself, and stared at the unopened letter on her desk. It was from her father, the second she’d received since being admitted to the Long Island Home over two months ago, despite the fact that she’d written every day, begging to be released. The ivory envelope had been sitting there since she’d returned from breakfast an hour ago. She’d picked it up twenty times, thumb poised on the edge of the back flap, then set it back unopened every time.

Henry’s first letter, delivered a week after Clara arrived, said her stay in the Long Island Home was for her own good, that it was just temporary, until the doctors could help her. But as the weeks went by with no more word, Clara started to worry that her father had changed his mind and she was going to stay longer than originally thought. Now, her future could be determined by the words inside her father’s latest letter, and, for as long as possible, she wanted to hold on to the hope that her parents were going to allow her to come home. When James found out she was carrying another man’s baby, the marriage would be called off. Her parents would disown her and kick her out on the street. But anything was better than this. Anything was better than being locked up in a loony bin, even if it was the best money could buy.

The rooms at the Long Island Home were warm and clean, the grounds well maintained. And, for the most part, the staff was pleasant. Patients dined with silver and fancy porcelain, and lounged in parlors on Louis XV sofas. Treatment consisted of rest, relaxation, good food, fresh air, and activities such as bicycling and tennis on the grass. And, of course, therapy sessions. But there was no mistaking that she was being kept against her will. During her first therapy session the day after her arrival, she had asked Dr. Thorn what would happen if she tried to leave.

“Why do you want to leave?” he’d said, looking at her over his round spectacles. He was tall and whippet thin, with an enormous Adam’s apple that bobbed up and down in his leathery throat like a fish in a pelican’s beak.

“Because I don’t need to be here,” Clara said. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“I see,” Dr. Thorn said, scribbling on his pad. “How then, do you think you came to the Long Island Home?”

Clara sat in a wooden chair, her ankles crossed between the seat, her hands folded in her lap. She dug her fingernails into her palm and tried to look calm. “My father isn’t used to me standing up for myself. He thinks women should be seen and not heard. This is his way of silencing me, of trying to prove he can control me. He’s trying to force me to do something I don’t want to do.”

“Isn’t it a father’s job to do what’s best for his children?”

“Yes,” she said. “It is. But he’s not doing what’s best for me! He’s trying to force me to marry a lousy, no-good . . .” She paused, stomach churning, worried she was saying too much. “What did my father tell you about me? Why did he send me here?”

“He said you had some kind of breakdown. He’s worried that you’re not thinking clearly.”

“That’s absurd,” she said. “He just can’t handle the truth.”

“And what is the truth, Clara?”

“The truth is my parents care more about money and power than their children.”

“You seem to have a lot of anger toward them for sending you here.”

Clara sat up straighter. “Of course I’m angry!” she said, raising her voice. “Who wouldn’t be?”

Dr. Thorn nodded and wrote something down in his notebook. He asked the next question without looking up. “Do you believe your father is plotting against you, Clara?”

Clara stiffened. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Plotting is too strong a word. My father thinks sending me here will teach me a lesson. He doesn’t approve of the man I love. He thinks when I go back home I’ll go along with his plans.”

Dr. Thorn set down his pen. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, then folded his hands on the desk and gazed at Clara, searching her face. “Sometimes,” he said in a quiet voice, “when we get anxious or upset, we imagine things. Your father says you accused him of killing your brother.”

“That’s not true!” she said. “My brother committed suicide because he thought he had nothing to live for. My father ruined him and my mother let it happen.”

“Do you hold your parents responsible for your brother’s death?”

“They could have handled things differently,” she said. “Instead they went to extremes like they always do. Instead of talking things through like normal parents, they got rid of him!”

“And now you think they’re trying to get rid of you too.”

“That’s not what I . . .” Clara stopped talking and tried to slow her thundering heart, suddenly realizing her words could be twisted around and used against her.

“Is something wrong?” Dr. Thorn said, lifting his eyebrows.

She shook her head.

“Why don’t you finish what you were saying?” he said.

She looked down at her hands, feeling her eyes flood. “You’re not listening to me,” she said. “You’re only hearing what you want to hear. You’re twisting my words and making it sound like I’m unstable.”

“You seem to be very suspicious of people,” he said. “Your parents, the man they want you to marry. Even me.”

“How would you feel if the tables were turned, Doctor? Wouldn’t you try to explain yourself and ask to be released if you were perfectly sane?”

Dr. Thorn closed his writing pad and put his glasses back on. “The patients here at the Long Island Home are only allowed to leave with a release from me, or at the request of the admitting party, in this case, your father.”

“So what would happen if I just packed up my suitcase and left? What if I just walked down the driveway and out the front gate?”

Dr. Thorn smiled and sniffed, as if suppressing a laugh. “I suppose you could try,” he said. “But the Long Island Home consists of fourteen acres and it’s quite a walk to the front gate. We’d stop you before you got very far. Besides, the gate is locked and I’ve seen the size of the trunk you brought with you. I can’t imagine you’d have a very easy time of carrying it out of your room, much less down the stairs and across the lawns.”

Clara’s face grew warm. She was about to tell him she didn’t give a damn about her steamer trunk. She’d leave without it if she had to. But then she realized he might take her anger as something else, as part of her “condition.”

Her first mistake the day she argued with her father was taking the time to pack a bag. She should have left the study, grabbed her coat, and run out of the house that very instant. She should have fled the minute she heard her father telling the lieutenant to bring a doctor. Instead, she’d hurried to her room and started packing her steamer trunk, forgetting that she’d have to carry the oversized chest down the stairs by herself, that the butler and driver would not be called upon to carry her luggage out to the car. After all, she was running away, not going on another overseas voyage. But she hadn’t been thinking clearly, her panicked mind unable to string two coherent thoughts together. All she knew was that she needed to take as much as possible, because, when she left, the clothes in the trunk and the dress on her back would be all she owned in the world.

Thinking about it now, she berated herself for being so stupid. She knew the police could be at her house within minutes because Ruth had called them numerous times—when she couldn’t find her string of pearls, when the candlesticks from the parlor went missing, when her favorite English tea set had disappeared. Every time, the police arrived and talked calmly to Ruth while she paced and wailed, convinced that the help was stealing. Then, like common criminals, the maids and butlers and limo drivers were lined up and questioned. Eventually, a logical explanation came to light; Ruth’s necklace had slipped behind her dressing table, the candlesticks were in the pantry waiting to be polished, the tea set had been returned to the wrong cupboard. After Ruth realized her precious things were no longer missing, she thanked the police for coming so quickly. Meanwhile, Clara did her best to apologize to the help.

If only Clara had remembered the speed at which the police could arrive, instead of being like Ruth and worrying about her “things,” she might have had the chance to slip away. When her father brought the lieutenant, two policemen, and a doctor up to her room, her steamer trunk was nearly full and the possibility of escape no longer existed. Henry ordered the men to close the trunk and take it away, along with his only daughter. She could still picture her father’s red face and wild eyes, his arms gesturing as if he were ordering a criminal taken out of his house.

“What seems to be the problem?” the lieutenant said.

“She was spouting all kinds of horrible accusations,” Henry said, shaking his head. “I’m afraid she’s imagining things.”

“It’s not true!” Clara said. “I just . . .”

Henry looked at the doctor, his eyes pleading. “Can you help her?”

Clara ran toward the door and a policeman grabbed her wrist. She struggled to break free but it was no use. “Let me go,” she cried. “You can’t do this! I didn’t do anything!”

“Has Clara suffered any emotional trauma recently?” the doctor asked Henry.

“She lost her brother,” Henry said. “And somehow she’s got it in her mind that I . . .” Henry hung his head, his clenched fists to his forehead, as if it was too much to bear.

“That’s not why I . . .” Clara cried. The policeman tightened his grip on her arm. “No, let me go!”

The lieutenant directed his attention to the doctor, letting him make the final call. The doctor nodded. Before Clara could protest further, the policemen grabbed her by the arms and led her out of the bedroom, down the stairs and outside, where she was shoved into the back of the doctor’s black Buick, her jacket and winter boots tossed onto the backseat beside her, her luggage thrown into the trunk. She remembered looking out the car window at the stone entrance of her parents’ house, the familiar granite balustrade and carved fleur-de-lis above the doorway. She wasn’t sure why she looked; maybe a small, hopeful part of her expected her mother to be crying on the steps, upset that her only daughter was being taken away. But the only thing she saw was the hem of her father’s smoking jacket as it disappeared through the entryway, the brass knocker bouncing with the slam of the door.

Now, Clara chewed on the inside of her cheek, trying to think of a way to convince Dr. Thorn to let her go.

“I’m sorry,” the doctor said. “But I’m afraid our time is up.”

“But I . . .” Clara said.

The doctor stood and went around the desk. “We’re finished for today, Clara.”

Clara stood. “That’s it?” she said, throwing up her hands. “You’re going to make decisions based on a twenty-minute conversation?”

“We’ll talk more at your next appointment,” he said, opening the door.